I like the vintage Gull Wing style of the cleaning portion, and I'm not sure why they didn't just do the whole building that way.

It appears that Alabaster moved to Broad River Road around 2009, and Crown closed around 2010. I did not see any indication that the building is for sale, and apparently the Fire Marshall thinks someone may try to refit it, so we'll see what happens there.

Here is another Master Cleaners location. This one is rather interesting because it comprises two buildings on either side of Blossom Street. The odd location is the drop-off point, and the even location is the actual cleaning, storage and pick-up point. I suppose I have driven past this spot at least once a week for the past decade or so without noticing this!

Currently, it being Five Points, the drop off location has quickly become a de-facto free-parking lot.

I have to say it's an attractive little shop -- I like the Palmetto logo, both on the marquee and the back wall, and the little flower archway is a nice touch (though I'm not sure how it fit in originally).

I'll also note that when I did the closing on Burnette's Cleaners at the other end of this plaza (but with the same 2250 address) I said in error that Palmetto had been in its spot. That's what relying on googling a street address (and not driving the full length of a strip mall) will get you.

Here's another vacancy in the little plaza at Two Notch and Pine Belt. This one was unfortunately shot against the sun, but is a former Arnold's Professional Cleaners.

Except for the occasional stop at Food Lion, I get to this strip very seldom, but it seems to me that a lingerie store was in this slot not too very long ago.

I believe however that the Arnold's chain itself has been around Columbia for a long time. Growing up, I was sure they were somehow connected with Arnold Palmer since he and Arnold the pig from Green Acres were the only times I heard the name. (This was way before the Govenator).

Palmetto Fine Cleaners was on the East side of Broad River Road, more or less across from Dutch Square and Boozer Shopping Center (though not exactly across from either). It's the outbuilding of a little strip mall there, and has a really nice logo, and interesting facade. It appears to have been an orderly closing, with stored clothes passed on to another cleaner.

Arnold's Professional Garment Care (or Arnold's Cleaners as the building signage indicates) looks to have been in this building for a good many years. The plaza, at the North West corner of Meeting and 12th Streets is a bit of a hard luck location, losing its grocery long ago, but Arnold's kept going until this location (there are others) closed on the first of February. If you had clothes there, don't panic -- they've been taken to the North Main Street store.

This corner space at Trenholm Plaza was most recently occupied by The UPS Store, but when I was growing up, it was Ed Robinson's, though I probably never knew it by name.

My mother did not believe in clothes dryers, opting for a clothes-line in the back yard. This was fine most of the time, but since rain is not unknown in the Columbia area, every now and then we would be faced with a need for clothes that were not yet dry. In addition to that, in the 1960s I had the impression that our washer was something of a lemon. There were fairly frequent calls to the service man, and more than once I recall the floor covered in sudsy water.

When we needed clothes washed or dryed, there were two choices: either the laundomat by what is now city hall on Trenholm Road, or the one in Trenholm Plaza. I think that when my mother had to deal with us children, we tended to end up at Ed Robinson since she could let us "free-range" around the plaza while the clothes were cycling.

As I recall, the staffed laundry was in the east end of the building with the laundromat area being in the west end. The laundromat area was filled with tables and wheeled hampers, and smelled of soap and hot lint. As I recall, the tables were some sort of plastic, or covered with plastic and hued aqua-marine. I would sit on them, and swing my legs back and forth (this must have been before I could read, or I would have had a book). As a boy I was fascinated by mechanical devices of all sorts, and I was particularly fixated on the gas dryers which lined the west wall. Not only did they have sort of retro-spaceship-control sliders for varying the temp from "warm" to "way too hot", but they were large enough (floor to ceiling) that I could imagine actually riding in one (this was during Gemini & Apollo) with more room to spare than the astronauts had. The start (or "blast off") process was particularly satisfying as you put your quarter in a slot way at the top of the machine (I had to use a chair), turned a knob which had a very satisfying action, heard your coin drop with a cheery plink, and then got to push the starter button which wound the whole thing up.

The washers were not quite as interesting, but did have a variety of little plastic tops you could put on the agitator for reasons which escape me now, and of course you could always play "open the lid -- washer stops" / "close the lid -- washer starts" until my mother would make me stop so she would get a full wash from her quarter.

I'm not sure when the cleaner closed. I know it was still there in 1970, but think it was gone by the time I left town in 1985. As for myself, while I agree with my mother that line dried clothes are nicer than tumble-dried ones, I don't have her patience. The line is still in the back yard, but the clothes go in the Kenmore. (And for all that I tend to be a "they don't make them like that anymore" guy, I don't think I've ever had to call service on a modern washer or drier..)

The original plan for Trenholm Plaza was to tear down the whole wing, and The UPS Store moved across the way in anticipation of that, but in the event the economy collapsed and management scaled their plans back to doing a remodel instead. Most of the spaces have been re-filled, but the old Ed Robinson space is currently still empty.

I'm not sure if Video Solutions & Satellite Connection were two different businesses or two "DBA"-es for the same company. What I am sure of is that there have been many other businesses in this striking little building on Covenant Road just across from the former Piggly Wiggly and just down from Trenholm Park over the years, going back at least into the 60s. Unfortunately, I can't now recall any of them, though I'm pretty sure it started as a drycleaner's.

I put 2005 as the date for the last operations there due to this document, which appears to be related to a creditors' take-over of some *other* satellite company. There's not much information in the header part, but I'm thinking since Satellite Connection was apparently one of the creditors, they may have paid money for equipment they did not get, which is not a good situation for a small business to be in. I could be totally wrong.

Anyway, according to the construction permit, the building has been taken over by Harmony School which is the small school more or less behind this building. Since these pictures were taken, they have implemented the "Parliment" option and have torn the roof off that sucker.

UPDATE 22 July 2009: Added Sunshine Cleaners to the post title in response to indetifications from the comments.

UPDATE 7 July 2010 -- It appears that work on the building is nearly done:

UPDATE 15 Jan 2011: Correction -- it was never a Sunshine but it was Custom Cleaners & Laundry (at least from 1970 - 1976 according to the city directories) and was a Brinson Laundry & Cleaners from 1977-1984. I don't have dates for the other operations.